The Case of Sergeant Grischa

The story of a simple Russian peasant caught on the Eastern Front in World War I, this classic novel was first published to wide acclaim in English in 1928. It is a devastating indictment of military brutality and a horrifying tale of an individual caught in the cogs of a remorseless machine. Grischa, a soldier of the Russian Army and prisoner of war of the Germans, escapes and determines to find his way home across the war-ravaged wastes of Central Europe. To evade arrest, he wears the uniform of a dead German soldier he finds in the snow. But the dead German was a deserter, and when Gischa is recaptured he is sentenced to be shot. He struggles to establish his true identity, but will it save him?